Entergy wins battle over Louisiana electric competition, capping yearslong fight

Entergy successfully beat back an effort Monday to invite more competition into Louisiana’s power sector, capping a yearslong fight with petrochemical companies who have raised concerns about a spate of planned projects set to cost billions.

The Louisiana Public Service Commission, which regulates power companies in most of the state, ended the long-running debate Monday on a 4 to 1 vote.

The commission has spent years debating whether to allow full — or more realistically, limited — ”retail access” in the power sector. The petrochemical companies supporting it have said that if they’re allowed to get more power without going through Entergy, they could save everyone money.

A group representing some of Louisiana’s biggest petrochemical companies warned at the meeting that Entergy is set to heap huge rate increases on customers in the coming years. Entergy is retiring a series of power plants built in the 1960s and ‘70s at the same time that it’s courting power-hungry data centers and as the state’s petrochemical sector grows.

But Entergy countered that inviting in other providers would hurt the state’s ability to attract new companies seeking low-cost power from existing utilities. And Republican Commissioner Eric Skrmetta accused the other electric providers pushing for more access to the market of greed, saying they would cost regular residents money if big companies were allowed to exit the Entergy system.

The commission’s staff hasn’t yet done a full data analysis to see whether that’s true. Lane Sisung, consultant for the PSC, said the docket being debated hinges on whether industrial customers could go around Entergy without costing other customers more money. If the docket had been allowed to go forward, staff would have collected data over the coming months to evaluate whether costs would rise for other customers.

“I can’t sit here today and give you an answer one way or another,” Sisung said.

Former Commissioner Craig Greene, a Baton Rouge Republican who stepped down last year, set the debate in motion in 2019, when he argued that offering customers more options could reduce costs.

Commissioner Davante Lewis, a Democrat, was the only member who voted to keep the docket open, saying he wanted to see the commission evaluate all of its options.

“I have not drawn any large conclusions in this docket because we simply don’t know what we don’t know,” Lewis said. “Now, we’re being asked to stop our work because of what it might find.”

Entergy had asked the commission to consider ending the docket earlier this year.

The vote Monday clears the way for Entergy to continue as the dominant electric provider for Louisiana’s massive industrial sector, which consumes huge amounts of electricity and creates huge amounts of emissions.

The Louisiana Energy Users Group, which represents petrochemical companies seeking the ability to buy power from other providers, was the main driver of the push to invite in competition. It has long said that if the commission doesn’t evaluate other options, both commercial and residential users will be stuck with huge Entergy bills in the coming years as the company adds billion-dollar, gas-fired power plants to its inventory, driving up rates. The group is partly animated by a desire to more quickly build clean energy to make their products more attractive overseas.

“Entergy is pursuing unprecedented spending and rate increases,” said Randy Young, head of LEUG.

Skrmetta, who sided with Entergy, launched into a lengthy attack on a group of power companies who have backed a lobbying campaign to evaluate more options. The companies, including Calpine, Constellation and NRG, want more opportunities to enter Louisiana’s market and formed Amplify Louisiana, which has run TV ads encouraging the PSC to continue looking at retail access. Exelon, which previously owned Constellation, was implicated in a bribery scheme in Illinois several years ago.

“These are top-tier corporate tycoons who want to come to Louisiana and operate outside the law,” Skmretta said.

Gordon Polozolo, a representative of Amplify, argued that there was no harm in simply evaluating whether the commission could find a better path forward for industrial customers.

“If the commission ultimately finds the status quo is fine, keep the status quo,” he said.